


The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round (Time and Time Again Remix)

by fiftymillionstars



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 10:56:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiftymillionstars/pseuds/fiftymillionstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was trying to think of a vague and poetic summary that I could put here, in keeping with my other vague and poetic summaries, but then I realised OH NO I WROTE STRIDER MANPAIN which pretty much sums up the entire thing accurately, so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round (Time and Time Again Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [addy_is_not_a_laddy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/addy_is_not_a_laddy/gifts).



> Once again I planned to write something longer than this but then I procrastinated and ran out of time, god damn it. If the ending feels rushed, that's because it was rushed; my apologies for that. I wish I had more time so I could add in the other segments I wanted to add, and also so I could connect Bro's segments together more smoothly, but oh well! Maybe next time I'll have learned my lesson. (sarcastic laughter)

You are seven years old when you witness your first death: Leslie Burke falling into an overflowing creek and slamming her head against a rock. It startles you so bad you have to pause the film, heart beating wildly. You aren’t entirely sure what’s just happened to Leslie, but you have faith that somehow Jess will save her, or she’ll climb out of the creek, or _something_ ; you aren’t sure what.

When Leslie completely fails to make it out of the creek, you are terribly confused. What was going on? Why was everyone so _sad_? And why on earth wasn’t anybody trying to go find Leslie and get her out of the stupid creek?

When you ask Roxy about it, she tells you it’s because Leslie died, but that answer leaves you unsatisfied somehow, even after you look up ‘death’ in the dictionary. You don’t understand why she couldn’t just snap out of it somehow. When you tell Roxy as much, you’re greeted with a silence from Roxy that drags out much longer than you previously thought possible.

“You just don’t get it, Dirk,” she says at last, her eyes and voice filled with a strange sorrow that only serves to confuse you more. You frown into your webcam.

“No, I guess I don’t.”

* * *

You are nine years old when you learn that your bro died to save the world. It turns up in one of the classified official documents Roxy’s dug up about Dave Strider and Rose Lalonde, the two insurgents who resisted the Empress’ takeover. It was very well-protected, Roxy tells you, tucked away behind several different firewalls of varying complexity and encrypted with a key that she’d never seen before. But of course all this was no match for Roxy’s “mad haxx0r skillz”, and so there you are, reading about your bro’s death and eating popcorn.

Because you’re _nine_ , for crying out loud, and you have no more understanding of death than your best friend Lil Cal does. Death is something that happens in the movies you torrent, but that’s okay because the actor always comes back for another film. Death is so far away from you that it cannot reach you on your tiny seagull island. It is an insubstantial film that glides over the water like oil, nothing more.

* * *

You are thirteen years old when you understand what death truly means for the first time. There is one particular seagull you’re grown fond of over the years, an ugly-looking bird with mottled plumage. You call him Rocky because he brings your rocks sometimes from a far-off place beyond your flat blue horizon. You keep the tiny pebbles in a tiny box in your room. They are your only taste of a world not your own.

One morning you go out on the roof to find Rocky splayed out on the ground, wings crooked at odd angles, feathers strewn about him like someone busted up a pillow. You run to him and lift his little broken body in your thirteen-year-old hands. He’s warm only from the sun, not quite stiff yet, and his eyes are still open. They are dull like the rocks he brings you, no longer shiny bright like sunlight on sea. You feel your throat close up.

There is something different about this limp puppet in your hands and the odd bird you know. Knew? Your head swims. It’s just a seagull, you keep telling yourself. They come and go all the time. It’s just a seagull. It’s just a seagull.

Only it’s not just a seagull; it’s Rocky, and Rocky is your friend. Except he can’t be your friend anymore because he’s dead and that means he can never ever come back, not like in the movies. You try not to cry. Suddenly you think of your Bro and how his record said “Deceased on [REDACTED] after a fatal confrontation with Her Imperious Condescension”, and you think about how Earth was still full of people then and about how there must have been someone waiting for your Bro at his home, waiting and waiting and waiting except this time he was never going to come back, never ever ever, and death isn’t anything like like it is in the movies because you don’t think you’ve ever hurt this bad before, not even that one time you climbed the transformer on your roof and fell off and broke your leg. You wail in sorrow, crying for the loss of someone you’ve never even met.

* * *

You don’t know what to do with Rocky’s body. In the movies funerals are held for the deceased, placing the bodies in fresh-dug holes in the ground. The only problem is you don’t have any dirt to dig a hole into. Rocky’s too big to flush down the toilet like a fish, and anyway you don’t think it would be right to bury a bird in the ocean. You scratch your head. Then you think of Jake.

\--timaeusTestified  [TT]  began pestering golgothasTerror  [GT] at 16:24--  
TT: Hey, it's me.  
GT: Oh hey!  
GT: Whats up dirk?  
GT: I havent heard from you in a while!  
GT: Been busy doing some mysterious strider-thing i suppose?  
GT: Building manly robots while watching manly movies?  
GT: Or i guess i should say bro movies!  
GT: Would you rather i use manly or bro?  
GT: Dirk??  
GT: Earth to dirk?  
GT: Am i doing the thing again?  
GT: Asking stupid questions and generally making a fool of myself??  
GT: Committing a social blunder???  
GT: The next boner in the long saga of jake english boners??  
GT: Costarring his three best friends of course.  
GT: Why they put up with his antics is anyones guess.  
GT: Man that would make a really stupid movie.  
GT: I bet someone would find it funny though!  
GT: Someone who enjoys laughing at pain.  
GT: Dirk?????????????  
GT: Hello????????  
TT: Sorry. I’m a bit distracted.  
TT: You know. Busy dodging all these sicknasty brosplosions.  
TT: Stuff like that.  
GT: Oh i see haha! I should have figured.  
TT: Are you doing anything right now?  
GT: Not really!  
GT: Why do you ask? Did you want to do something with me?  
GT: Oh did you want to play that online boardgame thing again?? Man that was fun!  
GT: Even if i didnt have any clue what was going on.  
GT: You totally beat the pants off me dude!! I am SO READY for a rematch.  
GT: Ill take you down this time with guns blazing!!! POW POW POW, english wins and strider bites the dust!!  
GT: Hows your OWN MEDICINE taste mr strider???   
GT: Does it taste like..............................  
GT: DEFEAT??  
TT: Your enthusiasm is as quaintly endearing as always. But there’s a different reason for my contacting you.  
TT: Though I will admit to being tempted by your rematch offer.   
TT: Maybe I’ll take you up on it later. That is, if you’re ready to lose horribly to me like you did the last time we played.  
TT: Bro. B)  
GT: Oh come on!!! The only reason i lost to you last time was because you didnt want to explain the rules to me!  
GT: I will TOTALLY own you in the rematch round.  
GT: The hero takes on his opponent once more and rises from the ashes of his defeat to the flames of VICTORY!!  
GT: Itll be just like the rematch between joe louis and max schmeling!  
GT: The BLACK UHLAN OF THE RHINE stands in false championship. His evil ways have brought him this far.  
GT: But whats this! Whos that in the crowd approaching shmeling???  
GT: Its THE BROWN BOMBER, a symbol of all americas hopes and dreams!!  
GT: The crowd in yankee stadium murmurs in excitement. The former champion was defeated by schmeling once before.   
GT: In fact it was exactly a year and a day ago that the fateful fight took place!  
GT: That day louis lost the title of heavyweight champion along with his pride.   
GT: But no longer will his people weep for what was lost. Because today..........  
GT: Today he will RISE AGAIN!  
GT: The crowd cheers in jubilation!!! Its freedom vs oppression, and freedoms set to win!!!  
GT: ARE YOU READY????  
TT: Maybe another time.   
GT: Awwwwwww!!! You had me all riled up there dirk! What am i supposed to do now?  
GT: A golden fisticuffs opportunity lost!  
TT: Don’t you have someone else you could duel?  
TT: A friend of yours?  
TT: Like I said, I have a reason that I’m talking to you.  
GT: Well not really dirk!   
GT: Im all alone on this island actually.  
GT: Not that it isnt fun but it can get a little lonely sometimes!  
GT: Really living by yourself isnt all its made out to be.  
GT: But i bet it must seem pretty cool to you!  
GT: And yeah it is pretty awesome!  
GT: But like i said i just get lonely sometimes.  
TT: Jake, focus.  
GT: Huh???  
GT: Wait are we playing the game after all??? Hurrah!  
TT: No, Jake.  
GT: :(  
TT: I will rematch you later.  
TT: Remember I said I contacted you for a *reason*?  
TT: Aren’t you curious as to what it is?  
GT: Oh thats right!! I remember you saying something like that. I got so worked up i forgot to ask about it.  
GT: I take it you want me to ask you what it is?  
TT: JAKE.  
GT: Okay okay sorry!  
GT: So whats your mysterious ulterior motive, bro dude?  
TT: Well, actually.  
TT: I have a favor to ask you.  
GT: A favor??? What can i do for you dirk?  
TT: It’s kind of weird.  
TT: Actually, it’s really weird.  
TT: Never mind.  
GT: Hey no fair!!!  
GT: You cant just build up all that suspense and then call it quits!!  
GT: At least tell me what you were gonna ask.  
GT: I promise i wont say anything about it!  
TT: Are you sure?  
GT: Yeah im sure!! Thats what friends are for dirk!  
GT: Theyre there for you when you need them most!  
GT: So ask away good chap! Ill see what i can do for you!  
TT: Thanks, Jake.  
TT: I appreciate it.  
GT: Your welcome dirk!! Im always glad to lend a hand.  
TT: Okay, here goes.  
TT: It’s  
GT: ???  
GT: Dirk are you there?  
TT: This is ridiculous.  
TT: Rocky died.  
TT: You don’t even know who Rocky IS this is so STUPID NEVER MIND  
TT: Forget I said anything, okay?  
GT: Oh no!! A friend of yours died?  
GT: Thats terrible dirk!! Im so sorry to hear that!  
GT: *GT slings his arm around his best bro in the most comforting manner he can*  
GT: My grandma died a while back.  
GT: Did i tell you that already?  
GT: It was a couple years ago but i still get real sad about it sometimes.  
GT: It really sucks losing someone close to you dirk!! You dont think its gonna hit you hard because you know its bound to happen eventually.  
GT: But it really hurts! It slams into you like a train.  
GT: A train of used tissues and snotty noses.  
GT: And the conductor is a real dick to boot, always yelling at you to SHAPE UP and STOP CRYING.  
GT: But you cant stop crying because youre on his train! So you just have to ignore everyone who says you shouldnt be crying or who says to TOUGH IT OUT or whatever.  
GT: You have ever right to be sad about it for as long as you want to be! You cant just tell that to go away on its own.  
GT: Even if you did it wont listen to you! And its certainly not gonna listen to other people who have no idea whats going on.  
GT: So the only thing you can really do about it is to ride it out.  
GT: If you wanted to talk id be more than willing to lend you an ear!  
TT: Thanks, Jake.  
TT: I mean that.  
TT: Thanks.  
GT: Youre welcome dirk!! Im always here for my best bro.  
GT: So how does this tie in to the favor you wanted to ask of me?  
GT: If thats not too forward of me to ask.  
TT: Well, the thing is.  
TT: Rocky’s a bird.  
GT: A bird??  
GT: Was he your pet?  
TT: Not quite.   
TT: He was part of a flock of seagulls that spends a lot of time near my house.  
TT: He was different than the rest, so I took notice of him.   
TT: I liked him a lot. He used to bring me pebbles.  
GT: And thats why you called him rocky?  
GT: Thats really sweet dirk! Im sorry you had to lose your friend!  
GT: But how can i help you with that?  
TT: Where I live there’s really no place to bury him, and I don’t want to just...  
TT: Throw him away, you know?  
TT: So I was wondering.  
TT: If I sent his body to you, would you bury him for me?  
GT: Of course dirk!! I would be more than happy to do that for you!  
TT: Thank you.  
TT: I really appreciate it.  
GT: No problem! What are best bros for?  
GT: B)  
TT: Heh.  
TT: B)  
TT: I’ll go send him to you now, all right?  
GT: Sure thing dirk! Ill be on standby to pick him up!  
TT: Okay, cool.  
TT: And thanks again.  
GT: No problem dirk!!  
\--timaeusTestified  [TT]  ceased pestering golgothasTerror  [GT] at 19:02--

You send Rocky’s body to Jake without a hitch and, presumably, Jake buries him on his island. You are both relieved and strangely sad that everything worked out the way it did. On the roof of your apartment, you build a little memorial for Rocky out of some of the pebbles he brought you. Beside it you build a slightly larger one for your bro. You spend a silent hour out there almost every morning, sitting in front of the piles of rocks, thinking.

When the piles are blown off during a summer storm that causes your entire house to shake and tremble, you don’t bother to replace them.

* * *

You are sixteen years old when you die for the first time.

Your plan is perfectly calibrated. You are 100% certain it will succeed. And it does: everything goes smoothly, until Roxy’s death. But that’s okay, because you have a hundred fail-safes built into your plan in case something like this happened, eventualities that you investigated as thoroughly as you cold. The planning fallacy: people will always plan for the best-case scenario, calling it the average-case scenario instead; to beat it you make sure to always plan for the worst-possible scenario, to be sure nothing catches you off-guard, at all, ever. You bend down and kiss Roxy’s lifeless form.

Then you pick up your transportalizer.

You lick your lips. You think of your bro, who sacrificed himself to save an entire planet that fell anyway. Compared to him, you’re practically the epitome of selfishness.

You are absolutely terrified.

You know, consciously, that you’ll continue to live on; the transportalizer is primed to send your head direct to Jake, AR standing by to convince him to kiss your severed, bloody lips. Then you’ll awaken in your dream-self’s body, which you already know as well as your own. You’ve run over this possibility a hundred hundred times in your planning.

Still, you are afraid, a dark, choking fear that grips you tightly, frightening in its intensity. Knowing you will continue to live on does nothing to assuage it.

You close your eyes. Your body trembles and your stomach heaves, sick on the rush of adrenaline that’s crashing through you. You want to gag, or cry, or scream.

You lower the box over your head. Speed is imperative, you know. In the confined space of the transportalizer your breath rasps in your ears, loud and harsh. You are aware of every sensation you are experiencing, every twinge and ache in your body, every sound magnified tenfold. There’s an acrid tang in the back of your throat.

Ironically, in the seconds before your death, you are more alive than ever before.

You send your head to Jake.

There is a pain in your neck, a sharp, clean pain that wraps around your throat like a necklace, burrowing deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and

You open your eyes on Derse, the Red Miles singing and wailing around you, the sound of crackling fires and collapsing buildings a harmonic accompaniment.

You’re alive. _God,_ you’re _alive_ , and nothing in the world has ever seemed so sweet. You fall to your knees, destruction all around you, and you let out a choked sob of some emotion you can’t identify- grief, or relief, or something else; you’re not sure.

You think of your bro, of how he died to save millions of strangers who would never know his name. You think of how _you_ don’t even know his name. You think you think you think.

You take a deep breath and rise to your feet. There are things to do and people to see. You don’t have time to be crying over your temporary death.

You wonder if your bro would be proud of what you’ve done.

You hope so.

* * *

_(A dark room, laced through with chains. A silence so thick and throbbing as to be alive. Two forms. Then: candy-coloured fire, racing through the air, incinerating everything in its path. Warmth, then coolness, then nothing._

_The silence between lasts for an eternity. It lasts for no time at all._

_Awake, awake, arise. Be reborn this day.)_

* * *

Your name is Bret Strider. You are 19 years old, about to start college, and your favourite record store has just been annihilated by a baby riding a horse riding a meteor.

You are currently wondering if you are high, or dead, or perhaps both. Strangely, you seem to be none of these things. Also strangely, the horse seems to have a pink patch of fur on its rump in a disturbing neon shade. It’s goddamn _heart-shaped._ A pink heart cutie mark.

You sit down, rather heavily. The baby seems to be quite happy perched atop a dead horse in a smoking crater.

You wonder why you seem to be the only person in a heavily-crowded city who’s noticed the appearance of a baby atop a flaming hunk of space rock.

So you do the completely natural thing: you pick up the baby, gently, and then you sling the dead horse over your shoulder, beginning the walk back to your apartment.

* * *

Taking care of a baby is hideously expensive, a fact you’ve learned over the past couple of months. You can see the numbers in your bank account dropping faster than your income can flow in, and it’s at that point you realise just how badly you fucked yourself over by picking up the damn baby. You can’t very well give him away now; after all, he bears a frightening resemblance to you, and in any case you couldn’t _explain away_ the fact that you’d mysteriously found a one-year-old child and decided to pick it up and care for it instead of alerting the proper authorities.

You can see your life unfolding before you in two vastly different directions. In one path you see yourself going to college, getting your degree in robotics and information technology, working with wires and circuitry and possibly even becoming famous: doing what you’ve wanted to do since you were a kid. In the other path you see yourself becoming a father, raising the child you picked up like a lost purse.

Because it’s painfully clear to you that your finances can only support _one_ path; there is absolutely no way to do both.

You waver, at that. You can’t help yourself. You’re only nineteen years old. You shouldn’t have to be making decisions this important until you’re old enough to drink.

You pick up the kid and stare into his ruby-red eyes, strikingly similar to your own gaze.

“What about it, kid?” you ask softly.

And he _smiles_ at you, he fucking _beams_ , his eyes crinkling up and his little infant gums just starting to show the first signs of teeth.

“Abababa!” he says, reaching out towards you in infant delight.

You sigh.

“I guess that’s that,” you say.

He gurgles happily, and you melt, just a little bit.

* * *

The kid takes to you like a fish to water. When people ask why you’re toting a kid around alone, or who his mother is, or anything that translates to “why are you carrying around a juvenile human by yourself”, you tell them your girlfriend dumped you after finding out you were pregnant. The scary thing is, people seem to take that as a _believable excuse_ , a fact that completely _blows your mind_ , along with the birth certificate and other legal papers that _mysteriously manifest_ in your office one afternoon. As far as the law is concerned, this kid is yours.

Bret and Dave. You have to admit, it has kind of a nice ring to it.

(You _are_ rather confused as to how the birth certificate that appeared in your pseudo-office knew that Dave was your top pick for the kid’s name, right under Naruto Luffy Ichigo Yugi Mario the third.)

Dave, it seems, is an incredibly strong Chick Magnet, a fact you would probably enjoy greatly if you were into chicks. Alas, it seems, an infant boy is the exact opposite thing you need to be carrying around to attract your prey of choice.

You don’t really mind, though, because right now Being A Father ranks a little higher on your importance scale then Hot Gay Romance.

It’s a little odd how a kid who can’t even talk yet can reorder your priorities so quickly, but whatever, it just means he’s a master people-manipulator, not that you’re succumbing to, like, _fatherly feelings_ or whatever, because that would be stupid, and you’re most definitely _not_ stupid.

* * *

Becoming a Father is a lot different than you expected. Then again, you expected any child of yours to come out of a womb, not a space rock, so you guess you shouldn’t be surprised at how reality miraculously fails to meet your expectations.

For one thing, you don’t instantly become more responsible. For another, you really have to try to make ends meet, since caring for Dave is a job that demands your attention 24/7; you can’t get a day job because then he would be all alone in a small apartment filled with shitty weaponry and suggestive plush puppets. But without a day job, you don’t really have a steady source of income. You find yourself selling all your robotics supplies and a select few weapons that are both Not Shitty and also Not Important To You.

Somehow you stumble onto a niche internet community that gets off to puppets that are vaguely dong-shaped, and you manage to make a reasonable sum filming ridiculous stop-motion puppet porno. The internet never ceases to amaze you.

But you _do_ make ends meet, somehow, and you manage to baby-proof the apartment, sort of, and somewhere along the line Dave stops being _the_ kind and starts being _your_ kid, a fact which makes you kind of giggly when you least expect it, and goddamn it you thought gay men liking cute things like babies was just a stereotype, but, well.

He’s your little bro, after all.

* * *

Dave really does take after you. You teach him all that you know: how to fight, how to win, how to lose. You teach him how to keep his true feelings hidden, how to form a shield around his heart and mind, how to press on when all hope seems lost and how to back down when a win still seems possible. You try to teach him robotics, but he doesn’t take to it, much to your disappointment.

He does, however, take to music, so you buy a bunch of shitty used mix tables for around 10 bucks apiece and cobble together a really nice mix table from all the used parts. If you can’t build rapbots, you can at least do this.

You give Dave the mix table for his 9th birthday, and he just about faints in delight.

Oddly enough, you don’t think you’ve ever felt happier.

* * *

On Dave’s tenth birthday, you marathon Naruto with him, and it becomes a Universal Fact Of Strider Life that you are Itachi and Dave is Sasuke.

“Fight me!” Dave will cry, and you’ll poke him on the forehead and intone, “Sorry Sasuke, maybe next time,” and then you’ll whip out your sword anyway and the fight is on.

* * *

“Hey,” you say one day.

Dave looks up.

“John get your present yet?” you ask.

Dave shakes his head. “Nah, that’s tomorrow.”

You sit down next to Dave in easy silence.

“I love you, little bro,” you say, and before he can interrupt you with something dumb like _oh, onii-san, doki-doki,_ you hold up your hand to silence him. “I mean it. I love you to death, kid. I’d slice a meteor in half to save you, you know that, right?”

He nods, picking up your serious mood. “I love you too, bro,” he says, voice soft.

You pull him into a hug. “I don’t regret it,” you say. “Not a single fucking second of raising you.”

“Are you dying?” Dave asks.

At that you have to laugh. “Nah,” you say. “Just sentimental old fart disease. It’ll pass.”

And you sit together for a while, and you think of how you would lay down your life for this kid, how you love Dave more than life itself.

* * *

_(You shouldn’t actually be able to cut a meteor in half, that’s not fucking possible--_

_\--except you do, because you said you would--_

_\--and there’s no way you’re letting this monster touch your little bro--_

_\--even a strange bird-version of him--_

_\--and you slip up, of course you do, right when it matters._

_“Sorry, Sasuke,” you say, poking an orange feathered version of your little brother on the forehead, fighting pain and darkness and feeling his tears drop on your cheeks._

_“There is no next time.”_

_God, you love your little bro.)_


End file.
